About us

Twickenham Fine Ales is London’s oldest micro-brewery.

Founded by Steve Brown in 2004, Twickenham has been at the forefront of the resurgence of breweries in London. Using global hops from a early stage, and only the purest of ingredients, Twickenham produces a fine range of well hopped, award winning beers.

History

The Beginning

Twickenham Fine Ales was the first brewery in Twickenham since Cole’s Brewery closed in 1906.

In the beginning there was a 10 barrel plant which was installed in a small unit opposite a Greggs Bakery factory – pint and a pasty seeming natural bedfellows.

The early days of experimentation and trial settled down with the arrival of Tom Madeiros, as Brewer, in 2005. Being American the use of American hops seemed a natural path and Twickenham became an early adopter of the now popular and more common place hops used in many beers today.

The variety of hops grew and Twickenham now uses hops from countries including: England, Germany, Slovenia, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

The quality of Twickenham’s beers was recognised on a national level in 2007 when Sundancer won silver in the national Champion Beer of Britain at the GBBF. Unusual then for having such citrusy hops, especially in a lower strength beer (3.7%ABV), it is a wonderful pint giving as much satisfaction to drinkers today as at any time.

Expansion

However, with growth came the problem of space and so a search started to find another site to house a larger brewery. Unfortunately, Twickenham is not awash with industrial sites and it took two years to find somewhere suitable. The best part of another year was then spent building the new brewery until it was ready for it’s first brew in December 2012.

The brewery now has a custom made 25BBL kit and six fermenters, so can brew over 50,000 pints a week.

With the new kit came the need to refresh how the beers were seen too, so a great new brand look was done for the brewery by Springetts, a London design agency. This gave the beers the presence on the bar they deserved and makes it easier for the drinker to find the beers – critical I’m sure you’ll agree.

Twickenham now brew 20 beers a year – 4 regulars, 4 seasonals and 12 monthly specials – and they can be found across London and some surrounding areas.

Our products have now been bottled too. The increased capacity of the brewery now means enough can be produced to allow bottling too and, so far, Naked Ladies, Sundancer, Grandstand, Redhead and Honey Dark have been bottled. Various ones of these can be found in the likes of Oddbins, M&S and Waitrose.

Twickenham also brew Kew Garden’s Golden Ale & Kew Honey Dark, for Kew Gardens and Kew Steam Ale, for the London Water and Steam Museum, which can be bought in bottles at the respective venues.

10th Anniversary

Having celebrated our tenth anniversary with a hugely popular IPA, called Decade, and equally popular celebratory party, Twickenham is now heading for its next stage of expansion – with a fifth fermenter on its way and a keg product – Tusk – now launched, and our beers can now be enjoyed at the brewery too through tours, the brewery shop, or the bar which opens for England Internationals and Harlequins Saturday games.

The Future

We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing to more places, but if there’s something you’d like us to do or places you’d like to be able to get our beers then please let us know.